Hey guys....I haven’t been around here for a while. To be honest after the ES, I’ve been very board with keyboards in general in liue of my newfound love for VSTs. I’m the president of GospelMusicians.com have the ear of thousands of musicians around the world, so let me shed some light on this new XF.

1. Live Backing Tracks and Click Track: Fist let me start off by saying that for us professional musicians who thrive off of NEW sounds and live steming tracks as well as playing with a click track, this thing could actually replace my laptop and I want it to. I have a MacBook pro and I stream my tracks live from Logic, but sometimes, rarely it does crash. As good as Mac’s are, THEY DO CRASH....! Having my live stemming tracks, backing vocals, and click tracks all in one unit....OMG....Dream come true! Remember this XF is for people like myself that do this night in and night out and play with click tracks.

***DISCLAIMER: The 128MB limit is definitely wack! Super wack!!! But as I stated in other posts, companies have to give and take to reduce production costs, reduce price to consumer, and lack of modern technology on the production line. Yamaha like other manufacturers regurgitates the same technology to reduce production costs and we all are aware of the low end processors.

2. New Samples and New Sounds! Do you know how annoyingly slow it is loading my samples every Sunday for church into my Motif ES. So now having all of my sounds and samples ready and there when I get to church....Priceless!

3. Portability - If I’m not mistaken, but just assuming, you can take your Flash chips with you and load them up into another board if you like. Travel to another city and ask them for an XF and take a screwdriver in your gig bag and just plug them in with all of your backing tracks, samples, etc…

***************NOW FOR THE BAD******************

1. 128MB LIMIT sucks! If I have to explain why it sucks, then Yamaha, you have not yet understood your customers.

2. 128-Note Polyphony! It’s 2010 and time to step it up! When trying to compete with the VSTs which are taking over it’s time to up the Poly. My performances on my Motif ES are stacked and I run out of polyphony fast. But as stated before, this is probably due to the underpowered processor that keeps Yamaha saving money, but limits us as professionals!

3. Live Stemming and Click Tracks maybe???? The concept of putting all of your backing tracks, click tracks, and backing vocals in the Flash is awesome, but there is a technical hurdle when trying to achieve this live:

The benefit of running your tracks from Logic/ProTools/Sonar etc is that the audio is streamed. Meaning if you stop your tracks in the middle of the song, then it can pick right back up when you re-start, because the audio files are streamed.

The potential problem with the XF is that the audio files will be treated as Samples, and not live streaming content. So rather than streaming as a computer DAW does, your XF will actually be triggering the live tracks. Triggering is very dangerous, because if you accidentally send a sustain message or drop polyphony, then because the audio is treated as samples, then you can drop the tracks very easy! BIG BIG PROBLEM. Also, you will not be able to stop the track in the middle of the sequence, because the sample started at measure 0 and triggers or sustains through the whole sequence.

Unless Yamaha has implemented sample/audio streaming from the Flash, then it would totally be useless in a live setting and you will find yourself always dropping the sample trigger for those of us who really want to stream a live set as most professionals do.

The solution would be to sequence your entire performance on the Motif and breaking up the chops like sequences, forcing you to sequence on the Motif, which is much more cumbersome than tracking on a DAW!

....Something to consider!

Putting all that in red just makes it difficult to read and does not add any strength to your point (lol). If you are playing “what ifs” why not “what if” you stop in the middle and you get booed off the stage. Doesn’t matter where the audio is being played from.

“What if” your computer crashes… that never happens!
Something to always consider.

“totally useless” we’ll see…

One thing I’d have to agree on about ALL workstations not just Yamaha. Roland Fantom G the M3 etc all the same is the Polyphony. It is 2010 and I don’t think these companies realize they are competing directly with VST’s. Older players like myself might very well prefer a stand alone board but the 19yo kids I see are using VST’s almost exclusively.
What Polyphony do I think is reasonable in 2010 ??? Lets try 512 at least. I don’t understand why the sample ram isn’t upgradable in the XF either it seems a no brainier to me ..flash or no flash. As for the flash well its nice but why only 2gig ? A 2 gig flash card is $30 .... If I had of been Yamaha I would have included a SATA SSD slot so the user can plug in a SATA SSD drive up to even 256gig ! I find it amazing that a 5 year old Tyros 2 with its user upgradable hard drive can have 125 times more storage then the upcoming XF !!!
As far I am concerned as soon as board manufacturers realize that their real competiors are the likes of Native Instruments rather then each other the better.
I am old school and more comfortable working with a board but I find myself using VST’s more and more and sooner or later the market for these boards is going to begin shrinking even further then it already has. The likes of Yamaha, Roland and Korg need to give newer players a reason to buy a board and things like limited storage and 128 note Polyphony are reasons for them NOT to buy.

You are right drpopper1...As a matter of fact MUSE Research just came out with: http://www.museresearch.com/news.php?id=110 for less than a grand that you can load up all of your plugins and it has a 32GB Flash drive that will allow you to load up all of your plugins and presets in a little box.

That’s the technology today....Now the dream would be to take the expertise of Yamaha as a hardware company to update their hardware and make Yamaha plugins or VSTs.

You can’t fight technology....the sooner you get on board, the longer you stay alive!

drpopper1 - 26 August 2010 12:17 PM

A 2 gig flash card is $30

Not all flash is equal. You are underestimating the requirement for the flash ROM. It has to be fast enough to handle the hundreds of requests per second (probably tens of thousands or more if you go to the bit level), and low enough latency in response that it’s going to be able to return the wave data stored in it on demand during a live performance of the synth (via fingers or sequencer). Yamaha have already said that they looked at this in detail and put the best compromise between price and performance they could into the XF.

drpopper1 - 26 August 2010 12:17 PM

.... If I had of been Yamaha I would have included a SATA SSD slot so the user can plug in a SATA SSD drive up to even 256gig !

If you had been Yamaha then you would probably have done what they did. They looked at SSD and found it unsuitable for technical reasons. Did you search the forum for ‘SSD’ before assuming they didn’t look into this?

drpopper1 - 26 August 2010 12:17 PM

The likes of Yamaha, Roland and Korg need to give newer players a reason to buy a board and things like limited storage and 128 note Polyphony are reasons for them NOT to buy.

No, those are not the reasons for me not to buy. I have my own reasons, which I did raise (and probably annoy slightly) the good Yamaha folk on this very forum, but we had a good healthy ‘back and forth’ discussion on it and although I don’t find the new XF approach works for me, I understand their perspective and I know for a fact that they know a heck of a lot more than I do about the synthesizer market, so I quit bellyaching about it.

Df.

Yamaha “doesn’t understand their customers”. Actually, Yamaha understands
their customers better than anyone who claims they don’t.

Yamaha US and Bad Mister have already answered the question of why there is “only 128MB’ of RAM already included in the stock Motif XF. But to
reiterate, the system is built to address a certain limit - that is, 128MB of RAM, 2 GB of flash, and 712MB of onboard ROM waveforms - PLUS,
it still has to manage all the screen updates and operations, including
sequence and arpeggio playback, translating keypresses to the appropriate
destinations, etc.

Could Yamaha build a more “capable” system? Yes, and it would cost them (and ultimately, you, the customer) a lot more money. We’ve seen the
“success” that the $8000 Korg Oasis was...when you start hitting the
$5000 street price for an electronic musical instrument, you start
losing customers, because it’s just not affordable for most people.

So - any manufacturer has to balance cost of production to profit. If
there’s no profit, there’s no point in production...end of discussion.
No company is in the business of catering to the smallest boutique
set of elite customers. The fact is, Yamaha has maintained the largest
share of workstation sales worldwide since the first Motif came out.
I’d say that from that statistic alone, they do understand their
customers.

You can always wish for this and that and complain about the absence
of this and that in a product. You have two alternatives - buy the
product that you think does meet your needs, or not buy anything
and not make your music.

Gospelmusicians,whats up Jamal???? Yeah i own the xs and as a live musican i wish they would of worked on the 128-note polyphony..I hate computers but vst’s is where it’s at..But i wish i could just use my board..Jamal we’re live musicians and therefore don’t need most of the crap these guys look for in a keyboard.. step recording and transpose...I say,learn how to play and you don’t need all of that garbage...Don’t get me wrong,I love yamaha..Many of my friends told me to get a controller keyboard and a mac and go from there but i got the xs anyway..I doubt if I’ll get the xf..My wife asked if i wanted it but I’m leaning towards the tyros..Anyway,the polyphony is my only issue

Hey dereknae.....How you doing man? I knew some of my fellow Gospel Musicans would come to my rescue. Been in talks with Yamaha for years for endorsement since I use their stuff on all of my videos, but nothing every happened. Some people take critism the wrong way. Critism is meant to make someone better not to bash it. Who else loves Yamaha more than I do....Heck I should hide the logo on my DVDs, but I don’t. Over the years I owned a Yamaha SY85, EX5, Motif Classic, and Motif ES. And to be honest nothing has been that inspirational since the EX5, which in my opinion had the biggest potential out of any board Yamaha ever made. To this day....people who see that blue board sitting on top still asks me what in the world is that.....when I play it with the Analog bass, and lead sounds with the VL stuff...people are like oh ma God....where can I get that board.

...So I’m definitely not a Yamaha basher! It’s just that we see how much better it could be!

Take a page out of Apple’s book....It’s about innovation and creativity....Not re-hashing the same ol’ technology and putting it in a different frame. The sounds are amazing on the Motif’s....but pretty much the same......Hey to be honest, I’m still thinking of getting the XF just for the FLASH feature....I’m waiting to hear from Yamaha to see if it supports Audio streaming from FLASH and not just sample playback. There is a big, big difference when doing live gigs.

Yep....dereknae, no one does live music more than a gospel musician. Every Sunday, all the concerts, seminars, Tuesday services, learning new songs every week. Haha....But no one ever asks us what we want. We are the forgotten bunch.......

If you can find a Yamaha EX5 for a good price, get it and don’t look back. Very inspirational to this day and guess what....16MB of flash Ram...haha back in 2001.

I’m currently working with the Awave developer to be able to support the EX5 format and I’ll already be able to load my samples in FLASH.

My Realistic Dream Yamaha Synth:

- I would start with the Motif Soundset which is awesome.
- Add the SY99 FM using the additive and subtractive synthesis. The SY99 had the ability to even import DX7 patches.
- Yamaha EX5 DSP with FDSP/VL/AN technology
- 2GB Ram option
- 1GB Flash RAM option
- Internal Hardrive with the ability to stream live audio for live stemming tracks like almost every professional on the market does with their computer.
- Ability to load Motif, Akai, A5000/A4000, and MPC samples

All of the technology above has been done already by Yamaha. Nothing new, but very inspirational as they SY99 and EX5 will allow you to create forever. You would almost never need another synth with this combination!

DavePolich - 26 August 2010 05:55 PM

Yamaha “doesn’t understand their customers”. Actually, Yamaha understands
their customers better than anyone who claims they don’t.



.

This is the problem with their thinking. They are building boards for “their” customers when they should be building boards to attract the people who have grown up using VST’s. I don’t believe for a second that it is going to cost much more to make a board with modern technology. To upgrade the processing from its current antiquated system to a modern system would cost very little. This would allow more polyphony. To upgrade memory flash or otherwise is very cheap. The 2gb flash board is probably about $25 worth of memory. I doubt the entire component cost of a motif hardware is over $400. The cost of developing workstations is in the sound sets and software not in the hardware.
I’m not picking on Yamaha specifically as all workstation’s are the same ...stuck in a time warp. Sooner or later one of the manufactures are going to realize that they aren’t competing with each other as much as they are with the VST industry and only then will they make the great leap forward that’s needed.
If it doesn’t happen ...I predict that workstations will go the way of the dinosaur within 5 years.

Dreamflight - 26 August 2010 04:58 PM

drpopper1 - 26 August 2010 12:17 PM

A 2 gig flash card is $30

Not all flash is equal. You are underestimating the requirement for the flash ROM. It has to be fast enough to handle the hundreds of requests per second (probably tens of thousands or more if you go to the bit level), and low enough latency in response that it’s going to be able to return the wave data stored in it on demand during a live performance of the synth (via fingers or sequencer). Yamaha have already said that they looked at this in detail and put the best compromise between price and performance they could into the XF.

If you had been Yamaha then you would probably have done what they did. They looked at SSD and found it unsuitable for technical reasons. Did you search the forum for ‘SSD’ before assuming they didn’t look into this?

Df.

Even the most fastest most expensive flash ram modules available on the market are less then $19GB/1000 from the manufacturer.

The “Technical” reasons about SSD do not wash with me. The Tyros 2 which is 5 years old and a Yamaha product offers the ability to install a SSD drive with up to 256GB capacity. SSD drives are fast enough to run HD video processing arrays ...don’t tell me that can’t run a motif which uses less bandwidth then a 15 year old cheap PC.
The reason they do not do these type of things has a lot to do with Korg’s Oasys experiment and very little to do with ability.
They are afraid of both the past and the future and as a consequence do nothing except incremental updates when what is needed is a massive thrust forward.
Don’t get me wrong I like Yamaha and I like the Motif but I would love to see it be able to compete head to head with the current state of the art technology which lets face it ...it cannot do.

Well, I understand you can easily build your own XF and beat Yamaha.
What stops you from doing it?

sciuriware - 27 August 2010 02:40 AM

Well, I understand you can easily build your own XF and beat Yamaha.
What stops you from doing it?

You don’t need to build a board to “beat” Yamaha (or roland or korg) anyone with a laptop, a controller and modern VST’s do that just fine by themselves.
But I much prefer an all in one board I’m old skool ...I’d like to see workstations compete.
What I want to know is why do people like me who prefer to work on a stand alone workstation have to put up with years old outdated technology ? And who is going to be the NEW customers of these boards ? I have no doubt Yamaha,Roland, Korg think they know “their” customers. But who are their new customers going to be? Certainly not kids using VST’s who would laugh at the polyphony, memory and sampling limitations.

You don’t seem to get it you think I’m picking on Yamaha.

I’m not picking on Yamaha ...

I’m not picking on Roland or Korg or Nord or any particular board manufacturer.

I’m picking on them ALL for not seeing the tree’s for the forest. They need to wake up and compete. If not their workstations are history.
Look what happened to the beatbox market after various software products rendered the hardware obsolete ? Now Roland doesn’t even make them anymore and Akai has had to change focus to controllers.

This will happen to workstations which is sad as I think they can be a better solution but only if they can compete on a technological basis.

drpopper1 - 27 August 2010 01:38 AM

A 2 gig flash card is $30
Even the most fastest most expensive flash ram modules available on the market are less then $19GB/1000 from the manufacturer.

CompactFlash, SD Cards and SSDs are block storage devices. It means you can not connect them directly to the processor’s memory bus just like you do with RAM (random access memory) which permits you to address every random byte with the same latency. You need to buffer the requested block of data from external storage to RAM before you can make any use of it.

For a 128 voice polyphony, the flash memory should handle 128 simultaneous reads with a total sustained data rate of 60 Mbytes/s (128 * 1 byte (8 bit) * 44100 kHz), with nanosecond latency. No memory card, hard drive, or SSD is able to cope with that; only RAM can sustain this true random access pattern.

That’s why Yamaha’s proprietary flash cards are true flash RAM cards, which are connected directly to the memory controller of the tone generator chip. They most likely have a much wider bus and higher operating frequency than most cheap flash memory chips used in memory cards; you can tell it even by the size of the chips on the proprietary board. This way, the flash acts just like regular RAM to the tone generator and is able to cope with the above requirements for the 128 voices.

As for 256 or 512 voices, well, as long as worsktations use flash memory for permanent storage of samples, that will not be economically feasible in the near future, as it will require 2-4x increase in bus width or operating frequency, and most likely an exponential increase in costs. Another possibility is to use large amounts of internal RAM and copy sounds to the RAM on startup from a fast memory card or SSD, but that’s costly as well.

So drpopper1, what are you doing on this forum??????????

Complaining!

sciuriware - 27 August 2010 04:25 AM

So drpopper1, what are you doing on this forum??????????

Complaining!

Geeze you think ?